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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
| birthplace = Portland, Maine, United States | deathdate = | deathplace = Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | occupation = Poet Professor | genre = | movement =Romanticism | signature = Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Signature.svg }} Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator, one of the five Fireside Poets. His works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's masterpiece The Divine Comedy. Life Overview Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine (then part of Massachusetts), and studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, living the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a former headquarters of George Washington. His first wife, Mary Potter, died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife, Frances Appleton, died in 1861 after sustaining burns from her dress catching fire. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on his translation. He died in 1882. Longfellow predominantly wrote lyric poems which are known for their musicality and which often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses. Early life and education Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807, to Stephen Longfellow and Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow in Portland, Maine,Calhoun, 5 then a district of Massachusetts,Sullivan, 180 and he grew up in what is now known as the Wadsworth-Longfellow House. His father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, was a general in the American Revolutionary War and a Member of Congress.Wadsworth-Longfellow Genealogy at Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - A Maine Historical Society Web Site He was named after his mother's brother Henry Wadsworth, a Navy lieutenant who died only three years earlier at the Battle of Tripoli.Arvin, 7 Young Longfellow was the second of eight children;Thompson, 16 his siblings were Stephen (1805), Elizabeth (1808), Anne (1810), Alexander (1814), Mary (1816), Ellen (1818), and Samuel (1819). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was enrolled in a dame school at the age of three and by age six was enrolled at the private Portland Academy. In his years there, he earned a reputation as being very studious and became fluent in Latin. His mother encouraged his enthusiasm for reading and learning, introducing him to Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote.Sullivan, 181 He printed his first poem - a patriotic and historical four stanza poem called "The Battle of Lovell's Pond" - in the Portland Gazette on November 17, 1820.Calhoun, 24 He stayed at the Portland Academy until the age of fourteen. He spent much of his summers as a child at his grandfather Peleg's farm in the western Maine town of Hiram. In the fall of 1822, the 15-year old Longfellow enrolled at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, alongside his brother Stephen.Arvin, 11 His grandfather was a founder of the collegeCalhoun, 16 and his father was a trustee. There, Longfellow met Nathaniel Hawthorne, who would later become his lifelong friend.McFarland, 58-59 He boarded with a clergyman for a time before rooming on the third floor of what is now Maine Hall in 1823.Calhoun, 33 He joined the Peucinian Society, a group of students with Federalist leanings.Calhoun, 37 In his senior year, Longfellow wrote to his father about his aspirations: I will not disguise it in the least... the fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature, my whole soul burns most ardently after it, and every earthly thought centres in it... I am almost confident in believing, that if I can ever rise in the world it must be by the exercise of my talents in the wide field of literature.Arvin, 13 He pursued his literary goals by submitting poetry and prose to various newspapers and magazines, partly due to encouragement from a professor named Thomas Cogswell Upham.Sullivan, 184 Between January 1824 and his graduation in 1825, he had published nearly 40 minor poems.Arvin, 14 About 24 of them appeared in the short-lived Boston periodical The United States Literary Gazette. When Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin, he was ranked fourth in the class, and had been elected to Phi Beta Kappa.Who Belongs To Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Beta Kappa website, accessed Oct 4, 2009 He gave the student commencement address. European tours and professorships After graduating in 1825, he was offered a job as professor of modern languages at his alma mater. The story, possibly apocryphal, is that an influential trustee, Benjamin Orr, had been so impressed by Longfellow's translation of Horace that he was hired under the condition that he travel to Europe to study French, Spanish, and Italian.Calhoun, 40 Whatever the motivation, he began his tour of Europe in May 1826 aboard the ship Cadmus.Arvin, 22 His time abroad would last three years and cost his father $2,604.24.Calhoun, 42 He traveled to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, back to France, then England before returning to the United States in mid-August 1829.Arvin, 26 While overseas, he learned French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German, mostly without formal instruction.Sullivan, 186 In Madrid, he spent time with Washington Irving and was particularly impressed by the author's work ethic.Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2008: 242. ISBN 978-1-55970836-4 Irving encouraged the young Longfellow to pursue writing.Burstein, Andrew. The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. New York: Basic Books, 2007: 195. ISBN 9780465008537. While in Spain, Longfellow was saddened to learn his favorite sister, Elizabeth, had died of tuberculosis at the age of 20 that May while he was abroad.Calhoun, 67 On August 27, 1829, he wrote to the president of Bowdoin that he was turning down the professorship because he considered the $600 salary "disproportionate to the duties required". The trustees raised his salary to $800 with an additional $100 to serve as the college's librarian, a post which required one hour of work per day.Calhoun, 69 During his years teaching at the college, he translated textbooks in French, Italian, and Spanish;Williams, 66 his first published book was in 1833, a translation of the poetry of medieval Spanish poet Jorge Manrique.Irmscher, 225 He also published a travel book, Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea, first published in serial form before a book edition was released in 1835. Shortly after the book's publication, Longfellow attempted to join the literary circle in New York and asked George Pope Morris for an editorial role at one of Morris's publications. Longfellow considered moving to New York after New York University considered offering him a newly-created professorship of modern languages, though there would be no salary. The professorship was not created and Longfellow agreed to continue teaching at Bowdoin.Thompson, 199 Nevertheless, he did not enjoy his time at Bowdoin, especially correcting exams and papers. He wrote, "I hate the sight of pen, ink, and paper... I do not believe that I was born for such a lot. I have aimed higher than this".Sullivan, 187 On September 14, 1831, Longfellow married Mary Storer Potter, a childhood friend from Portland.Calhoun, 90 The couple settled in Brunswick, though the two were not happy there.Arvin, 28 Longfellow published several nonfiction and fiction prose pieces inspired by Irving, including "The Indian Summer" and "The Bald Eagle" in 1833.Williams, 108 In December 1834, Longfellow received a letter from Josiah Quincy III, president of Harvard College, offering him the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages position with the stipulation that he spend a year or so abroad.Arvin, 30 There, he further studied German as well as Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and Icelandic.Sullivan, 189 In October 1835, during the trip, his wife Mary had a miscarriage about six months into her pregnancy.Calhoun, 114-115 She did not recover and died after several weeks of illness at the age of 22 on November 29, 1835. Longfellow had her body embalmed immediately and placed into a lead coffin inside an oak coffin which was then shipped to Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston.Calhoun, 118 He was deeply saddened by her death, writing "One thought occupies me night and day... She is dead - She is dead! All day I am weary and sad".Sullivan, 190 Three years later, he was inspired to write the poem "Footsteps of Angels" about her. Several years later, he wrote the poem "Mezzo Cammin" expressed his personal struggles in his middle years.Arvin, 305 When he returned to the United States in 1836, Longfellow took up the professorship at Harvard. He was required to live in Cambridge to be close to the campus and rented rooms at the Craigie House in the spring of 1837,Calhoun, 124 now preserved as the Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. The home, built in 1759, had once been the headquarters of George Washington during the Siege of Boston beginning in July 1775.Calhoun, 124-125 Previous boarders also included Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, and Joseph Emerson Worcester.Brooks, 153 Longfellow began publishing his poetry, including the collection Voices of the Night in 1839.Calhoun, 137 The bulk of Voices of the Night, Longfellow's debut book of poetry, was translations though he also included nine original poems and seven poems he had written as a teenager.Gioia, 75 Ballads and Other Poems was published shortly thereafter in 1841Williams, 75 and included "The Village Blacksmith" and "The Wreck of the Hesperus", which were instantly popular.Calhoun, 138 Longfellow also became part of the local social scene, creating a group of friends who called themselves the Five of Clubs. Members included Cornelius Conway Felton, George Stillman Hillard, and Charles Sumner, the latter of whom would become Longfellow's closest friend over the next 30 years.Calhoun, 135 As a professor, Longfellow was well liked, though he disliked being "constantly a playmate for boys" rather than "stretching out and grappling with men's minds."Sullivan, 191 Courtship of Frances Appleton Longfellow began courting Frances "Fanny" Appleton, the daughter of a wealthy Boston industrialist, Nathan AppletonCalhoun, 119 and sister of Thomas Gold Appleton. At first, she was not interested but Longfellow was determined. In July 1839, he wrote to a friend: "Victory hangs doubtful. The lady says she will not! I say she shall! It is not pride, but the madness of passion".McFarland, 59 His friend George Stillman Hillard encouraged Longfellow in the pursuit: "I delight to see you keeping up so stout a heart for the resolve to conquer is half the battle in love as well as war".Thompson, 258 During the courtship, Longfellow frequently walked from Cambridge to the Appleton home in Beacon Hill in Boston by crossing the Boston Bridge. That bridge was replaced in 1906 by a new bridge which was later renamed the Longfellow Bridge. During his courtship, Longfellow continued writing and, in late 1839, published Hyperion, a book in prose inspired by his trips abroad and his unsuccessful courtship of Fanny Appleton.Sullivan, 192 Amidst this, Longfellow fell into "periods of neurotic depression with moments of panic" and took a six-month leave of absence from Harvard to attend a health spa at Marienberg in Germany. After returning, Longfellow published a play in 1842, The Spanish Student, reflecting his memories from his time in Spain in the 1820s.Calhoun, 179 There was some confusion over its original manuscript. After being printed in Graham's Magazine, its editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold saved the manuscript from the trash. Longfellow was surprised to hear that it had been saved, unusual for a printing office, and asked to borrow it so that he could revise it, forgetting to return it to Griswold. The often vindictive Griswold wrote an angry letter in response.Bayless, 130-131 )]] A small collection, Poems on Slavery, was published in 1842 as Longfellow's first public support of abolitionism. However, as Longfellow himself wrote, the poems were "so mild that even a Slaveholder might read them without losing his appetite for breakfast".Irmscher, 60 A critic for The Dial agreed, calling it "the thinnest of all Mr. Longfellow's thin books; spirited and polished like its forerunners; but the topic would warrant a deeper tone".Thompson, 332 The New England Anti-Slavery Association, however, was satisfied with the collection enough to reprint it for further distribution.Wagenknecht, 56 On May 10, 1843, after seven years, Longfellow received a letter from Fanny Appleton agreeing to marry him and, too restless to take a carriage, walked 90 minutes to meet her at her house.Calhoun, 164-165 They were married shortly thereafter. Nathan Appleton bought the Craigie House as a wedding present to the pair. Longfellow would live there for the remainder of his life.Arvin, 51 His love for Fanny is evident in the following lines from Longfellow's only love poem, the sonnet "The Evening Star",Arvin, 304 which he wrote in October 1845: "O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus! My morning and my evening star of love!" He once attended a ball without her and noted, "The lights seemed dimmer, the music sadder, the flowers fewer, and the women less fair."Sullivan, 193 by Southworth & Hawes]] He and Fanny had six children: Charles Appleton (1844-1893), Ernest Wadsworth (1845-1921), Fanny (1847-1848), Alice Mary (1850-1928), Edith (1853-1915), and Anne Allegra (1855-1934). Their second-youngest daughter, Edith, married Richard Henry Dana III, son of the popular writer Richard Henry Dana, Jr., author of Two Years Before the Mast.Calhoun, 217 When the younger Fanny was born on April 7, 1847, Dr. Nathan Cooley Keep administered ether as the first obstetric anesthetic in the United States to Fanny Longfellow.Calhoun, 189 A few months later, on November 1, 1847, the poem "Evangeline" was published for the first time. His literary income was increasing considerably: in 1840, he had made $219 from his work but the year 1850 brought him $1,900.Williams, 19 On June 14, 1853, Longfellow held a farewell dinner party at his Cambridge home for his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was preparing to move overseas.McFarland, 198 Shortly thereafter in 1854, Longfellow retired from Harvard,Brooks, 453 devoting himself entirely to writing. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of Laws from Harvard in 1859.Calhoun, 198 Death of Frances On July 9, 1861,Miller, 91 a hot day, Fanny was putting locks of her children's hair into an envelope and attempting to seal it with hot sealing wax while Longfellow took a nap.McFarland, 243 Her dress suddenly caught fire, though it is unclear exactly how;Calhoun, 215 it may have been burning wax or a lighted candle which fell on her dress.Arvin, 138 Longfellow, awakened from his nap, rushed to help her and threw a rug over her, though it was too small. He stifled the flames with his body as best he could, but she was already badly burned. Over a half a century later, Longfellow's youngest daughter Annie explained the story differently, claiming that there was no candle or wax but that the fire started from a self-lighting match that had fallen on the floor. In both versions of the story, however, Fanny was taken to her room to recover and a doctor was called. She was in and out of consciousness throughout the night and was administered ether. The next morning, July 10, 1861, she died shortly after 10 o'clock after requesting a cup of coffee.McFarland, 244 Longfellow, in trying to save her, had burned himself badly enough that he was unable to attend her funeral.Arvin, 139 His facial injuries caused him to stop shaving, thereafter wearing the beard which has become his trademark. Devastated by her death, he never fully recovered and occasionally resorted to laudanum and ether to deal with it.Calhoun, 218 He worried he would go insane and begged "not to be sent to an asylum" and noted that he was "inwardly bleeding to death".Sullivan, 197 He expressed his grief in the sonnet "The Cross of Snow" (1879), which he wrote eighteen years later to commemorate her death: :Such is the cross I wear upon my breast ::These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes ::And seasons, changeless since the day she died. Later life and death ]] Longfellow spent several years translating Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. To aid him in perfecting the translation and reviewing proofs, he invited friends to weekly meetings every Wednesday starting in 1864.Arvin, 140 The "Dante Club", as it was called, regularly included William Dean Howells, James Russell Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton and other occasional guests.Calhoun, 236 The full three-volume translation was published in the spring of 1867, though Longfellow would continue to revise it,Irmscher, 263 and it went through four printings in its first year.Irmscher, 268 By 1868, Longfellow's annual income was over $48,000.Williams, 100 In 1874, Samuel Cutler Ward helped him sell the poem "The Hanging of the Crane" to the New York Ledger for $3,000; it was the highest price ever paid for a poem.Jacob, Kathryn Allamong. King of the Lobby: The Life and Times of Sam Ward, Man-About-Washington in the Gilded Age. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010: 98. ISBN 978-0-8018-93967-1 During the 1860s, Longfellow supported abolitionism and especially hoped for reconciliation between the northern and southern states after the American Civil War. He wrote in his journal in 1878: "I have only one desire; and that is for harmony, and a frank and honest understanding between North and South".Irmscher, 205 Longfellow, despite his aversion to public speaking, accepted an offer from Joshua Chamberlain to speak at his fiftieth reunion at Bowdoin College; he read the poem "Morituri Salutamus" so quietly that few could hear him.Calhoun, 240-241 The next year, 1876, he declined an offer to be nominated for the Board of Overseers at Harvard "for reasons very conclusive to my own mind".Wagenknecht, 40 On August 22, 1879, a female admirer traveled to Longfellow's house in Cambridge and, unaware to whom she was speaking, asked Longfellow: "Is this the house where Longfellow was born?" Longfellow told her it was not. The visitor then asked if he had died here. "Not yet", he replied.Irmscher, 7 In March 1882, Longfellow went to bed with severe stomach pain. He endured the pain for several days with the help of opium before he died surrounded by family on Friday, March 24, 1882.Calhoun, 248 He had been suffering from peritonitis.Wagenknecht, 11 At the time of his death, his estate was worth an estimated $356,320. He is buried with both of his wives at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His last few years were spent translating the poetry of Michelangelo; though Longfellow never considered it complete enough to be published during his lifetime, a posthumous edition was collected in 1883. Scholars generally regard the work as autobiographical, reflecting the translator as an aging artist facing his impending death.Irmscher, 137-139 Writing Style Though much of his work is categorized as lyric poetry, Longfellow experimented with many forms, including hexameter and free verse.Arvin, 182 His published poetry shows great versatility, using anapestic and trochaic forms, blank verse, heroic couplets, ballads and sonnets.Williams, 130 Typically, Longfellow would carefully consider the subject of his poetic ideas for a long time before deciding on the right metrical form for it.Williams, 156 Much of his work is recognized for its melody-like musicality.Brooks, 174 As he says, "what a writer asks of his reader is not so much to like as to listen".Wagenknecht, 145 As a very private man, Longfellow did not often add autobiographical elements to his poetry. Two notable exceptions are dedicated to the death of members of his family. "Resignation", written as a response to the death of his daughter Fanny in 1848, does not use first-person pronouns and is instead a generalized poem of mourning.Irmscher, 46 The death of his second wife Frances, as biographer Charles Calhoun wrote, deeply affected Longfellow personally but "seemed not to touch his poetry, at least directly".Calhoun, 229 His memorial poem to her, a sonnet called "The Cross of Snow", was not published in his lifetime. Longfellow often used didacticism in his poetry, though he focused on it less in his later years.Arvin, 183 Much of his poetry imparts cultural and moral values, particularly focused on promoting life as being more than material pursuits.Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007: 630-631. ISBN 978-0-19-507894-7 Longfellow often used allegory in his work. In "Nature", for example, death is depicted as bedtime for a cranky child.Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press, 1999: 52. ISBN 0520226879. Many of the metaphors he used in his poetry as well as subject matter came from legends, mythology, and literature.Arvin, 186 He was inspired, for example, by Norse mythology for "The Skeleton in Armor" and by Finnish legends for The Song of Hiawatha.Brooks, 175-176 In fact, Longfellow rarely wrote on current subjects and seemed detached from contemporary American concerns.Arvin, 321 Even so, Longfellow, like many during this period, called for the development of high quality American literature. In Kavanagh, a character says: We want a national literature commensurate with our mountains and rivers... We want a national epic that shall correspond to the size of the country... We want a national drama in which scope shall be given to our gigantic ideas and to the unparalleled activity of our people... In a word, we want a national literature altogether shaggy and unshorn, that shall shake the earth, like a herd of buffaloes thundering over the prairies.Lewis, R. W. B. The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955: 79. He was also important as a translator; his translation of Dante became a required possession for those who wanted to be a part of high culture.Calhoun, 237 He also encouraged and supported other translators. In 1845, he published The Poets and Poetry of Europe, an 800-page compilation of translations made by other writers, including many by his friend and colleague Cornelius Conway Felton. Longfellow intended the anthology "to bring together, into a compact and convenient form, as large an amount as possible of those English translations which are scattered through many volumes, and are not accessible to the general reader".Irmscher, 231 In honor of Longfellow's role with translations, Harvard established the Longfellow Institute in 1994, dedicated to literature written in the United States in languages other than English.Irmscher, 21 In 1874, Longfellow oversaw a 31-volume anthology called Poems of Places, which collected poems representing several geographical locations, including European, Asian, and Arabian countries.Calhoun, 242 Emerson was disappointed and reportedly told Longfellow: "The world is expecting better things of you than this... You are wasting time that should be bestowed upon original production".Irmscher, 200 In preparing the volume, Longfellow hired Katherine Sherwood Bonner as an amanuensis.Wagenknecht, 185 Critical response Charles Sumner]] Longfellow's early collections, Voices of the Night and Ballads and Other Poems, made him instantly popular. The ''New-Yorker'' called him "one of the very few in our time who has successfully aimed in putting poetry to its best and sweetest uses". The Southern Literary Messenger immediately put Longfellow "among the first of our American poets". Poet John Greenleaf Whittier said that Longfellow's poetry illustrated "the careful moulding by which art attains the graceful ease and chaste simplicity of nature".Wagenknecht, Edward. John Greenleaf Whittier: A Portrait in Paradox. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967: 113. Longfellow's friend Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. wrote of him as "our chief singer" and one who "wins and warms... kindles, softens, cheers and calms the wildest woe and stays the bitterest tears!"Sullivan, 177 The rapidity with which American readers embraced Longfellow was unparalleled in publishing history in the United States;Calhoun, 139 by 1874, he was earning $3,000 per poem.Levine, Miriam. A Guide to Writers' Homes in New England. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Apple-wood Books, 1984: 127. ISBN 0-918222-51-6 His popularity spread throughout Europe as well and his poetry was translated during his lifetime into Italian, French, German, and other languages.Irmscher, 218 As scholar Bliss Perry later wrote, Longfellow was so highly praised that criticizing him was a criminal act like "carrying a rifle into a national park".Sullivan, 178 In the last two decades of his life, he often received requests for autographs from strangers, which he always sent.Calhoun, 245 John Greenleaf Whittier suggested it was this massive correspondence that led to Longfellow's death, writing: "My friend Longfellow was driven to death by these incessant demands".Irmscher, 36 Contemporary writer Edgar Allan Poe wrote to Longfellow in May 1841 of his "fervent admiration which your genius has inspired in me" and later called him "unquestionably the best poet in America".Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Cooper Square Press, 1992: 171. ISBN 0815410387. However, after Poe's reputation as a critic increased, he publicly accused Longfellow of plagiarism in what has been since termed by Poe biographers as "The Longfellow War".Silverman, 250 His assessment was that Longfellow was "a determined imitator and a dextrous adapter of the ideas of other people", specifically Alfred, Lord Tennyson.Silverman, 251 His accusations may have been a publicity stunt to boost readership of the Broadway Journal, for which he was the editor at the time.Calhoun, 160 Longfellow did not respond publicly, but, after Poe's death, he wrote: "The harshness of his criticisms I have never attributed to anything but the irritation of a sensitive nature chafed by some indefinite sense of wrong".Wagenknecht, 144 Margaret Fuller judged him "artificial and imitative" and lacking force.McFarland, 170 Poet Walt Whitman also considered Longfellow an imitator of European forms, though he praised his ability to reach a popular audience as "the expressor of common themes - of the little songs of the masses".Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1995: 353. ISBN 0679767096. He added, "Longfellow was no revolutionarie: never traveled new paths: of course never broke new paths."Blake, David Haven. Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006: 74. ISBN 0-300-11017-0 Lewis Mumford said that Longfellow could be completely removed from the history of literature without much effect. Towards the end of his life, contemporaries considered him more of a children's poetCalhoun, 246 as many of his readers were children.Brooks, 455 A contemporary reviewer noted in 1848 that Longfellow was creating a "Goody two-shoes kind of literature... slipshod, sentimental stories told in the style of the nursery, beginning in nothing and ending in nothing".Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977: 235. ISBN 0-394-40532-3 A more modern critic said, "Who, except wretched schoolchildren, now reads Longfellow?" A London critic in the London Quarterly Review, however, condemned all American poetry, saying, "with two or three exceptions, there is not a poet of mark in the whole union" but singled out Longfellow as one of those exceptions.Silverman, 199 As an editor of the Boston Evening Transcript wrote in 1846, "Whatever the miserable envy of trashy criticism may write against Longfellow, one thing is most certain, no American poet is more read".Irmscher, 20 Recognition was first issued in Portland, Maine on February 16, 1940.]] Longfellow was the most popular poet of his dayBayless, 40 and is generally regarded as the most distinguished poet the country had produced. As a friend once wrote to him, "no other poet was so fully recognized in his lifetime". Gioia, 65 Many of his works helped shape the American character and its legacy, particularly with the poem "Paul Revere's Ride". He was such an admired figure in the United States during his life that his 70th birthday in 1877 took on the air of a national holiday, with parades, speeches, and the reading of his poetry. Over the years, Longfellow's personality has become part of his reputation. He has been presented as a gentle, placid, poetic soul: an image perpetuated by his brother Samuel Longfellow, who wrote an early biography which specifically emphasized these points.Williams, 18 As James Russell Lowell said, Longfellow had an "absolute sweetness, simplicity, and modesty". At Longfellow's funeral, his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson called him "a sweet and beautiful soul".Williams, 197 In reality, Longfellow's life was much more difficult than was assumed. He suffered from neuralgia, which caused him constant pain, and he also had poor eyesight. He wrote to friend Charles Sumner: "I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart".Wagenknecht, 16-17 He had difficulty coping with the death of his second wife. Longfellow was very quiet, reserved, and private; in later years, he was known for being unsocial and avoided leaving home.Wagenknecht, 34 Chairman Dana Gioia and Katherine C. Tobin, member of the USPS Board of Governors, unveiled a new U.S. postage stamp in honor of Longfellow in 2007.]] He had become one of the first American celebrities and was also popular in Europe. It was reported that 10,000 copies of The Courtship of Miles Standish sold in London in a single day.Brooks, 523 Children adored him and, when the "spreading chestnut-tree" mentioned in the poem "The Village Blacksmith" was cut down, the children of Cambridge had the tree converted into an armchair which they presented to the poet.Sullivan, 198 In 1884, Longfellow became the first non-British writer for whom a commemorative sculpted bust was placed in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey in London; he remains the only American poet represented with a bust.Williams, 21 More recently, he was honored in March 2007 when the United States Postal Service made a stamp commemorating him. A number of schools are named after him in various states as well. Neil Diamond's 1974 hit song, "Longfellow Serenade", is a reference to the poet.Hyatt, Wesley (1999). The Billboard Book of #1 Adult Contemporary Hits (Billboard Publications), page 150. He is a protagonist in Matthew Pearl's murder mystery The Dante Club (2003).Calhoun, 258 Over time, Longfellow's popularity rapidly declined, beginning shortly after his death and into the twentieth century as academics began to appreciate poets like Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Robert Frost.Williams, 23 In the twentieth century, literary scholar Kermit Vanderbilt noted, "Increasingly rare is the scholar who braves ridicule to justify the art of Longfellow's popular rhymings."Gioia, 68 20th century poet Lewis Putnam Turco concluded "Longfellow was minor and derivative in every way throughout his career... nothing more than a hack imitator of the English Romantics."Turco, Lewis Putnam. Visions and Revisions of American Poetry. Fayetteville, AK: University of Arkansas Press, 1986: 33. ISBN 0-938626-49-3 Publications Poetry *''Outre-Mer; A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea'', 2 volumes (volume 1, Boston: Hilliard, Gray, 1833; volume 2, Boston: Lilly, Wait, 1834); enlarged edition, New York: Harper, 1835; London: Bentley, 1835). *''Hyperion, A Romance''. New York: Samuel Colman, 1839; revised edition, Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1869. *''Voices of the Night''. Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1839). *''Poems on Slavery''. Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1842). *''Ballads and Other Poems''. Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1842). *''The Spanish Student. A Play, in Three Acts''. Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1843). *''The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems''. Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1845). *''Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie''. Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1847; London: Kent & Richards, 1848). *''Kavanagh, A Tale''. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1849). *''The Seaside and the Fireside''. Liverpool: John Walker / London: David Bogue; Hamilton, Adams; John Johnstone / Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd; John Johnstone / Dublin: J. M'Glashan, 1849; Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1850). *''The Golden Legend''. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1851; London: David Bogue, 1851). *''The Song of Hiawatha''. London: David Bogue, 1855; Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1855). *''Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow'' (2 volumes). Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857). *''The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems''. London: Kent, 1858; Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1858). *''Tales of a Wayside Inn''. London: Routledge, Warne & Routledge, 1863; Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863). *''Flower-de-Luce''. London: Routledge & Sons, 1867; Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867). *''The New England Tragedies'' . . . I. John Endicott. II. Giles Corey of the Salem Farms. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1868; London: Routledge, 1868). *''The Divine Tragedy''. Boston: Osgood, 1871). *''Christus, A Mystery'' (3 volumes). Boston: Osgood, 1872. (includes The Divine Tragedy, The Golden Legend, and The New England Tragedies). *''Three Books of Song''. Boston: Osgood, 1872; London: Routledge, 1872). *''Aftermath''. Boston: Osgood, 1873; London: Routledge, 1873). *''The Hanging of the Crane''. Boston: Osgood, 1874; London: Routledge, 1874). *''The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems''. Boston: Osgood, 1875; London: Routledge, 1875). *''Kéramos and Other Poems''. Boston: Houghton, Osgood, 1878; London: Routledge, 1878). *''The Early Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow'' (edited by Richard Herne Shepherd). London: Pickering, 1878). *''Ultima Thule''. London: Routledge, 1880; Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1880). *''In the Harbor, Ultima Thule Part II''. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1882; London: Routledge, 1882). *''Michael Angelo''. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1883; London: Routledge, 1883). *''The Writings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow'', Riverside Edition (edited by Horace E. Scudder, 11 volumes). Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1886). Reprinted in Standard Library Edition with Life, by Samuel Longfellow (14 volumes) Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1891. *The Complete Poetical Works of Henry W. Longfellow, Cambridge Edition (edited by Horace E. Scudder). Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1893. Republished as The Poetical Works of Longfellow (introduction by George Monteiro). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975). Prose *''Prose Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow'' (2 volumes). Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857). Translated *Charles Francois Lhomond, Elements of French Grammar and French Exercises, translated by Longfellow (Portland, ME: Samuel Colman / Brunswick, NJ: Griffin's Press, 1830). *''Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique'' (translated by Longfellow). Boston: Allen & Ticknor, 1833). *''The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri'' (3 volumes, translated by Longfellow). Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1865-1867. Revised, 1867. London: Routledge, 1867. Edited *''Manuel de Proverbes Dramatiques'' (edited by Longfellow). Portland, ME: Samuel Colman / Brunswick, NJ: Griffin's Press, 1830). *''Novelas Españolas: El Serrano de las Alpujarras; y el Cuadro Misterioso'' (edited by Longfellow). Portland, Me.: Samuel Colman / Brunswick, N.J.: Griffin's Press, 1830). *Oliver Goldsmith, Le Ministre de Wakefield (French translation by T.F.G. Hennequin, edited by Longfellow). Boston: Gray & Bowen, 1831). *''Syllabus de la Grammaire Italienne'' (edited by Longfellow). Boston: Gray & Bowen, 1832). *''Saggi de' Novellieri Italiani d'Ogni Secolo'' (edited by Longfellow). Boston: Gray & Bowen, 1832). *''The Waif: A Collection of Poems'' (edited by Longfellow). Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1845. *''The Poets and Poetry of Europe'' (edited, with biographical notes, by Longfellow). Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1845. Revised and enlarged, Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1871. *''The Estray: A Collection of Poems'' (edited by Longfellow). Boston: Ticknor, 1846). *Poems of Places, edited by Longfellow (volumes 1-19, Boston: Osgood, 1876-1877; volumes 20-31, Boston: Houghton, Osgood, 1878-1879). Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation. ''Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1897-1882, The Poetry Foundation, Web, Apr. 6, 2012. See also * "A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * List of U.S. poets References *Arvin, Newton. ''Longfellow: His Life and Work. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1963. *Bayless, Joy. Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe's Literary Executor. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1943. *Brooks, Van Wyck. The Flowering of New England. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1952. *Calhoun, Charles C. Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. ISBN 0807070262. *Gioia, Dana. "Longfellow in the Aftermath of Modernism". The Columbia History of American Poetry, edited by Jay Parini. Columbia University Press, 1993. ISBN 0231078366. *Irmscher, Christoph. Longfellow Redux. University of Illinois, 2006. ISBN 9780252030635. *McFarland, Philip. Hawthorne in Concord. New York: Grove Press, 2004. ISBN 0802117767. *Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN 0060923318. *Thompson, Lawrance. Young Longfellow (1807-1843). New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938. *Wagenknecht, Edward. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Portrait of an American Humanist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. *Williams, Cecil B. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1964. *Sullivan, Wilson. New England Men of Letters. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972. ISBN 0027886808. Notes External links ;Poems * "Christmas Bells" * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow profile and 17 poems at the Academy of American Poets. * Selected Poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) (35 poems) at Representative Poetry Online. * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882 at the Poetry Foundation. * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on LibriVox. * Audio - Hear the Village Blacksmith ;Books * - Plain text and HTML *Works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at Internet Archive - Scanned books, many illustrated and original editions. *Longfellow's Translation of Dante rendered side by side with that of Cary and Norton ;About * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Biography - Auburn University. * Maine Historical Society Searchable poem text database, biographical data, lesson plans. *Public Poet, Private Man: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at 200 Online exhibition featuring material from the collection of Longfellow's papers at the Houghton Library ;Etc. *Longfellow National Historic Site in Cambridge, Massachusetts *Wadsworth-Longfellow House in Portland, Maine *Famous Quotations by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Category:1807 births Category:1882 deaths Category:American poets Category:Bowdoin College alumni Category:Deaths from peritonitis Category:Harvard University faculty Category:People from Cambridge, Massachusetts Category:People from Portland, Maine Category:Recipients of the Pour le MÃ©rite (civil class) Category:Spanish-English translators Category:Writers from Maine Category:Writers from Massachusetts Category:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Category:19th-century poets Category:Poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:American translators Category:Translators to English